Soccer: Rams roll past Ramblers in league match, 6-1

BOYNE CITY — With a combined eight freshmen and sophomores on varsity, Harbor Springs youth was hardly showing on Monday in Boyne City as the Rams dropped the Ramblers 6-1 in their Lake Michigan Conference meeting.

Freshmen Parker Fairbairn and Lampton Kamalii each came away with two goals, as well as one from sophomore Geraldo Silva.

“When our freshmen play up to their potential, we’re a tough team,” Harbor Springs coach Ed Fantozzi said. “We’re going to have up and down games just because they’re freshmen but for the most part they’re learning to deal with it. By the end of the season we should be a very, very tough team to deal with.”

A 2-1 game at the half with goals by Kamalii and John Bailey for the Rams and a goal by Boyne’s Nick Backus, the game looked well in hand for the Rams in the second half.

“We played fine until the goal was scored against us, then we fell apart,” said Boyne coach Nick Baic. “They tried to change what they were doing and they shouldn’t.”

The scoring in the second half opened with Fairbairn’s first goal with 28 minutes to go in the contest. Kamalii added his second with just over 23 minutes remaining to push the game to 4-1.

Three minutes later, Fairbairn upped his goal total to two with a breakaway boot that found the back of the net.

“For the most part, we did exactly what we needed to do,” added Fantozzi. “We pulled John Bailey out of the forward lineup and into the midfield in the second half, which pulled up their main defender and all the cards kind of just followed after that.”

The cards continued to fall late in the second half with Silva getting into the action on a side post deflecting goal with seven minutes to go.

“It was a very good win, a good bounce back from the Elk Rapids game. Tonight’s game we were playing like we can play. When we put things together, we’re an effective team,” said Fantozzi. “I have not beat Boyne City here the entire time that I’ve coached. This is my fourth year. This is our first team win here playing Boyne City.”

For Boyne, the loss comes in a 2-7-1 season that has been a hard fix for Baic.

“It’s all the mental part. We should be undefeated, we have better athletes than any team we play,” Baic said. “We don’t have very many practices to fix it, playing games the whole time.”

Andy Morse finished with a strong night in goal for the Rams, while Fairbairn got time in net late. Boyne’s Alec Hoaglund started the night in net for the Ramblers.

Conference play will continue for the Rams with a trip to another one of the Lake Michigan’s best on Thursday, Sept. 19.

“At Grayling, a big conference game. I think they may be in first place,” Fantozzi said. “Today was nice, everybody got to play, goalie got to come out and get a little exercise in the field.”

The Ramblers will be right back in action at 4:30 p.m. today, Tuesday, as they travel to Sault Ste. Marie for a non league match.